Best and Worst: Airlines

BEST (longhaul): Air New Zealand
They've won heaps of awards, and rightly so. Great airline.

WORST (longhaul): Air Canada
Rattly bucket'o'bolts with wings.... scary... no comfort, no tv screens. Come on Canada, sort it out!!!

BEST (budget): TUI fly
A cheap flight from Munich to Cairo on a discount airline was much more comfortable than Air Canada. Super cheap, excellent service, very comfortable. Service I expect from a major expensive airline.

WORST (budget): Ezyjet
Should be called Squeezyjet. My legs don't fit between the seats. The flights are always delayed, usually by hours, causing great inconvenience.

Best and Worst: Long Distance Trains

BEST: tie between Eurostar Italia AV (Italy) and Thalys (France)
Big black leather recliner couches, and speeds well over 200km/h. Milan to Rome in 4 hours. Rome to Venice in 4 hours.

The french Thalys train is also fantastic - serving a glass of wine at 300km/h impresses me greatly. Just not quite as luxurious as the Italian one. Better service from the staff makes up for the Italian comfort.

WORST: Egypt
That train from Cairo to Aswan is rotten. But it's pretty much a third world country, so it's about what you expect.

Another notably bad train was an overnighter we took from Venice to Budapest. 13 hours stopping every half hour, 4 passport checks, a ridiculous Italian conductor was missed his life calling as a villain in an opera and the most uncomfortable seats. That's what we get for taking seats and not the sleeper. But the reservation fee for the sleeper alone was more expensive than a hotel room, which defeated the purpose of taking an overnight train.

Best and Worst: Public Transport

BEST: Munich
Busses, trams, subway, trains. All on time. All frequent. All clean. Awesome.

Berlin also gets a worthy mention - with awesome mobile phone coverage through the entire underground network.

WORST: Brisbane
I have to say that after travelling around the world, I have not experienced anywhere with a public transport system as bad as home. Sad but true.

London also gets a special mention for having such a frequent service (good) but it's hot, stinky and always breaking down (bad). What the hell is a signal failure anyway?

Best and Worst: Banking

BEST: London
Free banking that actually costs you nothing. I registered to receive online statements, and the bank sent me £5 to thank me for the postage and paper that they saved.

WORST: Canada
The bank fees are exorbitantly high, and so is the fees for using an ATM. Just crazy.... they already have your money... they just wanna keep it.... greedy buggers.

Canada's on a losing streak here!

Best and Worst: Mobile Phone Deals

BEST: London
Easily. So many good plans, cheap phones, excellent customer service.

The end of the line though is trying to activate roaming.... T-Mobile did want to charge me £250 to activate international roaming given my lack of a credit rating in the UK.

WORST: Canada
Having to pay to receive calls is absolutely stupid. And so is not being able to receive a text message unless you have credit on your phone. And so is not being able to recharge credit from a non-Canadian bank card. Retarded.

Best and Worst: Cheese

This is the first in my series of "Best and Worst" from the last year's travelling and living abroad.

BEST: Croatia
Believe it or not, I think the nicest cheese I had was some Gouda from a supermarket in Dubrovnik, Croatia. Just beats the nice stuff we had in France, although to be fair I'm not sure that we sampled enough of fromage to taste the best they had to offer.

WORST: Canada
Not only bad, but also so expensive. Never before have I felt like I paid so much money for something so bad. Bright orange coloured stuff they call "cheddar" that has the taste and texture of children's playdough hands down beats the pants off that dehydrated white crusty stuff in Egypt that doesn't even look like cheese.

iPhoto woes

I've had a hell of a time using iPhoto recently - it's been really really really slow, and buggy - crashing a lot, etc.

After a bit of searching, i found this program: iPhoto Library Manager.

It's a really neat utility, that can manage multiple libraries, and also serves as a utility to rebuild your photo library which makes iPhoto much much faster - and let's hope more reliable.

So if iPhoto 6 is being a dog, then give this a whirl!

White Trash Fast Food

A while back when we were in Berlin, we stopped in for a meal at White Trash Fast Food. This is an awesome restaurant / cafe / bar with a great menu (food and sense of humour), friendly staff, great atmosphere and heaps of stuff going on.

I took a copy of the menu as a souvenir... I have scanned it:

If you're in Berlin, I recommend it. Check out their website for gigs / DJs / etc: http://www.whitetrashfastfood.com/

Driving on the Autobahn

In Salzburg, we had a good look at some tours, which were all expensive, so we decided to rent a car. Unfortunately there were no clean ones, so we got a discount for driving a dirty car. (Austria really is very clean.)

So we drove to Berchtesgaden for some delicious cheese cake and coffee, set amidst the Bavarian mountains. At the Konditorei where we bought the cake and coffee, an older lady pushed in to pay for her order first. With my limited ability to comprehend German, I heard her say when she was finished something about "now you can serve the Americans". I blurted out "Australians!!", and she turned to me and said in near perfect English: "Oh, sorry... I think there is a big difference. Have a nice day!"

Then we headed to the Eagle´s Nest (Kehlsteinhaus), Hitler´s mountain hide out, completely destroyed and now rebuilt as a tourist restaurant. Amazing views, overcrowded by aging Germans. There´s lots of interesting photos of the place before, during, and after the war.








On a mission to see as many things as we could with the car, we headed to the town of Hallein looking for the Salt Mines. We were given a tourist brochure for the area and there is a summer tobogan ride in the town of Bad Dürrnberg. SOMMERODELBAHN!!!!! So much fun.

It brought back many fond memories of Canada going up a ski lift - albeit in very different in the summer time.

SOMMERODELBAHN!!!!!!

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=sommerodelbahn&sll=47.654288,13.093042&sspn=0.02515,0.030298&ie=UTF8&t=h&z=14

So we get on this little yellow plastic bucket and fly down a metal track for 2.2km at crazy speeds. Totally exhilerating. Afterwards we all had smiles on our faces from ear to ear, feeling like just like the excited children we really are :) !!!!

So if anyone gets the chance to go do this, we highly recommend it.






For a final activity we zoomed off on the Autobahn to the town of Mondsee, where there is a nice small town on a lake with beatiful views of the mountains in the background. Especially nice at sunset.



Today we see our last bit of Salzburg before heading off to Munich to see it before the Oktoberfest craziness.

Later!!!!
Matt & Shailee!!

Kotor Malibu

We spent a day in Kotor, a small town with Venetian / Dalmatian ancestry and a 13th century Fort on a hill overlooking the largest Fjord in Europe.

Here's a link to a google map.


About 1500 steps lead to the top of the hill, although some of it is just loose rocks, and not really steps. The climb was well worth it, fantastic views, and a good bit of exercise. (We haven't really been doing a lot, but it is a holiday.)

We found a nice bar right on the beach called "Malibu". They had nicely priced large glasses of good local beer for €1. Shailee and Lib decided it might be nice to have a malibu and pineapple.... "Can we have a Malibu and Pineapple?" ... "NO!". They don't have malibu. One of the girls was even wearing a Malibu promo shirt. Quite funny.

Then we went to pay our bill. We couldn't see the waitress who served us, so we took the bill and money to the bar. "Can we pay?" .. "NO!" we had to pay the waitress. We found another waitress... "NO!" ... wrong waitress, back to the bar. The bill was €4.50 so we figured that we'd just leave the fiver note on the bar and walk off. "NO! " They wouldn't let us go without giving us our change.

It seems that "NO!" is a standard response whilst they think of what the rest of the sentence should be. Hilarious...

We stayed in a local house, which is commonly done in these parts... Usually the family has a spare room that they rent out to travelers, but we felt a little uncomfortable in this house as there was no spare room.... the hosts gave us their beds and then proceeded to sleep on the kitchen floor. Oops.

And we didn't sleep all that well due to the road noise - mostly car horns. It seems that Montenegrin drivers think the horn is the best think since sliced bread and use it at any given opportunity.

Now we are relaxing in the coastal town of Budva, where we'll be for a couple of days before heading back to Dubrovnik.

Oh.... and the girls' fashions over here are crazy too. It seems that the general objective is to look as much like a stripper or prostitute at all times. Mums and little girls included.

Take care all,
Matt & Shailee.

Dubrovnik - a small world.

When we arrived in Dubrovnik, we were assaulted by what seemed like hundreds of old ladies, and a few old gents too, offering accommodation in their homes. Holding placards with photos of their rooms and maps of town.... it was really crazy.

Eventually, we gave in to the noise, and decided to go and stay with one nice old Lady who had her son there to help her. I figured the good family values there were worth supporting. George had a car and drove us around to the house, which was very nice.

Coincidentally, there were two girls staying in the house too, (there are 4 rooms in the house dedicated to providing accommodation for tourists) and we figured that one of the girls was the younger sister of a school friend, and that both girls had done the same degree at University as Shailee...

What a small world!

Photos on Facebook!

Check out some of our photos on Facebook!

Barcelona:
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=47827&l=12a8b&id=606441735

France (Avignon & Cannes)
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=48628&l=1ffdc&id=606441735

Italy (Rome):
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=48629&l=b3b0e&id=606441735
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=48632&l=9654f&id=606441735

And more to come.....

Croatia

Croatia is amazing.

No other opening line can describe this place. Marble steps and crystal clear waters, friendly people and great food.

Some places, like Split, have an enormous population of tourists, so it feels a little cheesy. We decided to go see some Islands, and every Aussie we met (along with many others) were all heading to the Island of Hvar.

We decided to follow a recommendation made by a Portuguese guy we met on the train out of Venice to go to the next Island down - Korčula. This is a special place.

The pace of everything on the Island is very slow and relaxed, so it`s good that we had our hectic stuff out of the way already and are in the mood for some swimming and sunbathing.

A highlight so far was renting scooters and riding along the coast of the Island. Such beautiful views and water. Amazing.

We also rode to one of the only beaches with sand in the South East corner of the Island, to find it covered in burnt German tourists (Prost!). Still, it`s more comfortable than walking on sharp rocks and shells to get in the water.

We`ve decided to stay her a little longer, just because it`s so beautiful and relaxing.

Shortly we`ll be heading inland to see Mostar in Bosnia, and then back to Kotor in Montenegro, and then to Dubrovnik back in Croatia.

Stay tuned for more photos and stories.
Matt & Shailee.

Uploading photos.... :(

I'm having a tough time uploading photos from overseas, because our nice camera takes photos that are about 4MB each, and the upload is very slow - especially from cheap internet cafes around the place.

At home I use the great facebook upload tool for iPhoto so the photos are compressed on my computer before they are uploaded, saving time and bandwidth.

Facebook does have a similarly neat tool that compresses the photos on the computer right from in the browser, using Java (at least on Firefox) but so far I haven't found a single computer in an internet cafe that has the required software installed. Grrr..

So if anyone knows of some PC software that is simple (ie: i can install it on a memoery stick) that can do the same thing as the Facebook Photo uploader for iPhoto, I'd love to know about it.

Thanks,
Matt

Italy

We're on a pretty tight schedule, so we don't have as much time to spend in places as we would like.

We left Cannes and headed for Milan. Once we got to Milan, we figured that we would head straight to Rome on one of Trenitalia's fastest trains, taking only 4.5 hours.

We stayed in a hostel close by to the main station. The hostel was fairly lifeless, with a bar downstairs that charged upper class London prices for their backpacking clientelle. Ridiculous I say. Perhaps they're catering for the upper echelons of backpackers, who are travelling with their Apple Mac laptops..... I'm not one of them, my Apple Mac laptop is at home, and I'm travelling on a budget. We did get stuck in a history lesson of South America with a very sociable backpacking grandfather from Argentina; entertaining, but also long and tiring.

The sights in Rome are amazing. We saw the Collosseum, Palantino Hill, Roman Forum, Vatican Musem and Sistine Chapel, Parthenon, Trevi Fountain, Spanish steps.... to name a few (and all in 2 days). Rome is full of amazing things to see, and is filled with so much history. A really amazing place.

We then boarded the fast train again and headed for Venice. Some nice girls we met on the previous train to Milan told us about a nice camp ground in (near) Venice called "Alba D'Oro". It's lots of fun. Very close to the airport, but the planes don't fly all through the night, so the noise isn't really a problem. The atmosphere here is excellent. Great facilities include a pool, spa, restaurant, bar and market with nicely priced drinks and food.

Venice is beautiful. Completely overrun with tourists, as one might expect, but a truely amazing city. Everything is so pretty. And, as you might expect, very expensive. Even at the out of town camp site, internet access is €5/hour - the most expensive we've paid for so far.

Tomorrow we catch an overnight train to Budapest. We decided to keep it cheap and get the 2nd class seats as opposed to the 1st class sleeping cabin because the reservation fee alone for sleeping cabin is actually more expensive than any reasonable hotel room, completely defating the purpose of saving a night's accommodation by taking the overnight train. So instead of paying €90 on top of our prepurchased tickets, we are paying the backpacker budget price of €5 each for the seats. 13 hours.... we may regret the decision... I hope our backs don't ache more than our wallets would have if we took the sleeper....

Till next time,
Matt & Shailee.

Avignon to Cannes

Our train to Cannes from Barcelona was booked out, so we got a slower train all the way to Avignon and camped there for a night.

Avignon is a beautiful little town. The camp ground is on an island in the river, and really close to a lot of the sites. The church bell sounds exactly like the one in Daft Punk's Discovery album... in the song "Aerodynamic" (I think).

And the traffic lights make this totally strange little song and dance sound to tell you when it's time to cross the intersection, and a plain old boring recorded voice to tell you when not to cross.

The next day we managed to get first class tickets on the TGV to Cannes (the playground of the rich and famous). Very Nice!

The lonely planet advises that unless you arrive in your own private helicopter you probably can't afford to stay in this town. So, we're camping in a small town up the mountain, which is only about 20 mins bus ride to the main part of Cannes. The camp site is really below average (utter cr*p) and more expensive than the flash one in Avignon. The toothless old woman who runs the camp site has less charisma than she has teeth. And the camp site is a long walk along a windy road with no footpaths to the bus stop, which wouldn't be much of a problem, except for the French motorists' love of speeding around blind corners.

So we're doing a lot of soaking up sun on a tiny patch of beach between the 10000ft long speed boats and cruisers, and between larger lobster-like english families and smoking italians and old topless women who have nearly got their skin to match their dark leather hand bags, and mahogany furniture, and the thousands of hotel owned umbrella deck chair combinations reserved for the ones who are willing to pay the 20+ Euros to sit on them. (Actually we don't know the price, because we wouldn't pay for it anyway - I like a towel on the sand!)

And the water is quite nice, except for the excessive amount of cigarette butts and trash that's washed into the Mediterranean. You definitely feel like you need a shower after a swim.

We forgot the camera cable, but we'll be sure to add some photos to here and facebook soon.

Take care all,
Matt & Shailee

Barcelona

We arrived in Barcelona. Thanks to a smooth flight on British Airways. (Much smoother and more comfortable than (sl)easyJet on last weekend´s trip to Belfast - Big hello to John and his family for having us stay and showing us such a great time!)

We´re staying at a cheap hotel/pension just off Las Ramblas. There´s a stack of prostitues outside who work day and night trying to drum up business (we don´t have a view of them from our room though...) And we haven´t been hassled at all and the hotel is incredibly clean and comfortable - especially for the price!

We spend a bit of time at the beach today and saw a few of the sites.

I went to Barcelona a few years back and it´s really nice to see that the construction on the Sagrada Familia is progressing. It´s even more amazing than when I saw it before.

There´s no photos to put up here just yet - but stay tuned.

Matt (and Shailee)

Scrabulous

I want my scrabulous back!

What a shame that they've disabled it in the US and Canada. Even more of a shame that they can't actually figure out that I'm in neither, and I still can't use it!

Copyright/trademark infringement or not. I don't care, I just wanna play it. :(

Wordle & Delicious

I've been using delicious for a while to bookmark things i find interesting.... This page generates a word map of your interests based on the tags you use in delicious.

I think it's a pretty accurate reflection of my interests.... don't you?



Anyone interested can look into my bookmarks at:

http://del.icio.us/soundevolution

-matt

Mobile Internet

I've just got a UK SIM card from T-mobile. They've given me 10 days free internet from my mobile, so I thought I'd test it out as a modem for my computer.

This is the speed using a wireless router connected to the cable-tv box in the house:



This is the speed using the mobile as a modem:




Not as fast, but mobile! :)

Nerdy, I know....

Goodbye Canada

We had a great time in Canada - so many good memories and nice people we met.

Special thanks to Fred for having us stay at his house in Montreal - what a champion.

But, There's a few things about Canada that I found annoying, so... out with it:

1. Cheese.

I mentioned it before, I know, but the Cheese in Canada is terrible. The saving grace was being in Montreal where the French Canadians (and especially those in Montreal's Little Italy) have good cheese.

2. Pennies.

Really, I don't care. Round it up or down to a dime for all I care. They waste time and space. And they're dirty too.

3. Prices Plus Tax.

Why can't prices be listed with tax included? Sure some people might want to compare the price in Vancouver to Calgary.... they can figure it out... I'm not going all the way to another Province to get groceries. It's impossible to get cash out to pay for anything because you don't know how much it will be. Gggrrrrrr.

4. Paying to receive phone calls.

This is ridiculous. I'm sure not all phone plans have this, but come on!!! The guy making the call is paying for it! Why do I have to pay as well?!?

5. Bank Fees.

Just too expensive. What can I say?


Apart from those things, Canada is an amazing country, with lovely people. I highly recommend it and look forward to going there again some time (except for the above-mentioned).

Bonjour from Montreal

We arrived in Montreal, safe and sound.

Our lovely host Fred, picked us up from the airport and drove us back to his house, where he has generously accommodated our stay. Later that night we went and watched Fred play indoor hockey... possibly the first Australian audience at a suburban Montreal weekday-evening league. Nice.

So far, Montreal is a lovely city, and we've been treated to great weather.

We're also really impressed that there are good things here, like cheese and bakeries - with real bread and croissants. Yum!

Off to see more tomorrow after a day of rest and errands today....

Our last days in Vancouver

When we returned from Vancouver, we decided to stay in the cheapest place we could find, which was a hostel/lodge in Chinatown.

I'm a big fan of Chinatown, for things like the $3 breakfast we scored the next morning - for both of us. But, the accommodation was lousy. The bed was the most uncomfortable thing I have ever slept on. A bouncy spring thing with lumps all over the mattress where the springs were just about to poke through. 

We met a nice guy from Brisbane on the bus back from Seattle, and had organised to meet up with him for a beer later, which was great to share travelling and snowboarding stories. We all ended up staying in a nicer backpackers right in the downtown area for our last two nights.

We also got the chance to go and have dinner and drinks with a local who I'd met in Australia several years before. This was also really nice, as the locals always take you to great places that are off the tourist trail... not by far, but far enough. We went to a lovely bar called "Stellas" which sported the largest variety of Belgian beer I have ever seen. Most of it was really good beer, the rest of it was simply outstanding. Unfortunately, we didn't quite have the time nor budget nor capacity to drink every beer on the menu, so that's going to have to be something to finish on another visit to Vancouver.

On our last day, Will, our housemate from Whistler, came down to meet us for lunch. He kindly brought my leather jacket which I had left on the back of our bedroom door when we moved out. Clever. It was great to catch up with Will and explore Yaletown (another under-explored part of Vancouver for us).

We also managed to pack in a trip to Granville Island, destination: the brewery. The walk across the bridge is about 10 minutes long, but there's no stairs off the bridge, so you have to walk another 10 minutes along the side of the elevated road before it finally meets the ground, and then walk 10 minutes back to the Island. Clearly a set of stairs would be really useful.

Granville Island itself is an awesome little hive of activity, with a neat brewery (unfortunately the brewery tour was fully booked, but we still tasted different kinds of beers), awesome markets, street entertainment, shops, and a whole artistic area that we didn't explore in anywhere near enough detail.

Following the advice of the helpful chap at the hostel counter, we decided to get the cheap bus to the airport, costing $3.75 each instead of $13 on the airport shuttle. I'd recommend this option if anyone's going to Vancouver Airport from the city, EXCEPT if you are doing it in peak hour with 3 big luggage bags and lots of carry on luggage and winter jackets (which weren't really all that necessary, since Spring has well and truly arrived).

Nonetheless, we made it to the airport, and made our farewells to Vancouver.

Later, Matt

A trip to Seattle

Shailee and I had a nice couple of days in Seattle after our time in Whistler.

Here's a tip if travelling by bus from Vancouver to Seattle: go to the toilet before going through US customs. They don't provide any, and you'll get in big trouble if you even ask to use a toilet. Coming back to Canada is no problems - clearly a more advanced civilisation, they have duty free shopping, toilets, automatic doors, and even smiles at the border. :)

Once in Seattle, we kept getting confused about what to call the Seattle Space Needle.... was it "Space Needle" or "Sky Tower", or .... "Spy Needle". :) So we just laughed to ourselves and called it the "Spy Needle" the rest of the time.

The Pike Place markets are fascinating, with lots of interesting trinkets, great seafood, and the first ever Starbucks shop. We did go there, as cheesy as it is, and I even drank the "Pike Place" special roast, which tasted to me only slightly less bland than the terrible Starbucks "House" blend. It's just a really ordinary, tasteless coffee.... but I guess that's the way the Americans like it. And obviously they love it, there's a Starbucks on virtually every city block in downtown Seattle.

We found a ticket box that sells same day discount tickets for concerts and theatres in town, and we bought tickets to see "Puppetry of the Penis" ! What a laugh. The audience was predominantly female (surprise surprise), although it is pretty much bloke humour.

Seattle is also filled with many homeless people, and there's an amazing number of people who walk around the streets having serious conversations with themselves. Or maybe we're crazy because we can't see the invisible people they're arguing with....?

That aside, we enjoyed our two days there, and were very happy to be back in Vancouver.

More later, Matt

Broken Bindings

Today was one of the last days on the mountain for Rachel (our housemate), before leaving Whistler for Hawaii and continuing her adventures. I took her out to the Symphony area of Whistler, and on quite a few runs that she hadn't been on, including the Saddle - a nice fast blue run, which makes a wide straight rolling speedway from near the top of Whistler to the bottom of the Peak Chair.

Nic (another housemate) and I made some serious speed down the Saddle, stopping about half way to check on Rachel, who was following behind at a much more conservative speed - no problems.

So Nic and I take off again at pretty good speed and accelerating. Just then I notice a whole group of skiers, carving from left to right like crazy who came in on the side of the run. Nic flew right past one guy, and I slowed down a little to see what he was going to do. Turn right, so, I went left, and accelerated down the hill. Then just as I was passing him, he turns hard left and hits me from the side. I see him coming at me and try to turn away, but I didn't manage to avoid the collision.

Travelling quite some speed, I completely stacked it, flipping over about 10 times, snapping both bindings clean off my board. Lucky for me, I was wearing my helmet, and got up with only a tiny bruise on my knee. The other guy wasn't wearing a helmet and looked a bit cross-eyed when he got up, saying "Sorry, mate. I didn't see you there. Got a bit of a blind spot on these goggles."

Turns out he was part of an advanced ski school, training to be a ski instructor. Clown.

I walked, carrying my broken bindings down to the Peak Chair, where the Liftys got on the radio and sent a Skidoo (motorbike on skis) to come get me, and I rode down the gondola to the village. Where I just managed to get home in time to go to work.

Shailee, being ever so helpful, took my board and broken bindings back to the shop where I bought them, and - to cut a long story short - replaced the broken parts. Which means now I have even more cool mismatched "frankenstein" bindings. :)

Just in time for us to leave for Calgary the next morning to see Jodie and Mike and go snowboarding in Banff/Lake Louise.

Later, Matt

Sore head

We celebrated our housemate, Graham's birthday by:

• Snowboarding all day, followed by
• Dinner and drinks, with
• Karaoke,
• Matt getting his fancy new red Helly Hansen jacket stolen,
• Shailee getting her boots all messed up,
• Rachel putting her boots on the wrong feet,
• Matt cutting his forehead on the edge of his snowboard,
• and much, much, more.

All in all, a fun night, despite the frustrations, with many enjoyable stories to be told and re-told afterwards.

Sick means tissues...

I'm feeling a bit better now, after being in bed for basically 3 days straight... but just to gross you all out, this is how many tissues i went through last night!
Yukky yuk yuk

Sick Again!

Shailee and I have both come down with some crazy chesty flu thing that gives you a crazy headache and clogs up all your sinuses. On top of that, it's got really cold during the last week, down to minus 20 celcius at the house, judging by the thermometer downstairs.

At least we're sick at the same time to give each other moral support.

Hope everyone is doing well!

Matt & Shailee.

Look, a Bus stuck in the snow!

Look, a Bus stuck in the snow!

This bus tried reversing into a driveway and missed...

Now his back wheels are basically off the snow, and he is ... well ... stuck.

What's with the Cheese?

What's with the Cheese in Canada?

It's expensive, it's orange, it tastes terrible, and, it's really expensive.

I heard someone say to me that their was some taxes or something to protect the local cheese industry. If that's true, it was obviously made by someone who has never tasted good cheese. He was probably lactose intolerant. Seriously - who would want to protect something that's absolute rubbish!?